Peregrine by Piper Scott
Perry
Present Day
When Perry woke, he was in the hoard bed at Sebastian’s side. He’d hoped, naively, that a nap would ease some of his inner turmoil, but it hadn’t. Life was seldom so forgiving, and today in particular, it was relentlessly harsh.
All of this was his fault, of course. He hadn’t been careful. He’d known his heat was on the way and he’d let Sebastian ravish him regardless. If he’d been more responsible, none of this would have happened, but it had been such an awfully long time since he’d last been kidnapped, and in the excitement of it all—
“You’re blaming yourself again,” Sebastian grumbled. “Stop it.”
“It’s my fault, Sebastian.”
“No. It’s not.”
“I—”
“It’s not your fault.” Sebastian’s voice rumbled like rocks crashing down a ravine. “I was the one who knotted you. Without my seed, there would be no child. You have no part in this. Which is why I will be the one who makes this right.”
Before Perry could object, Sebastian collected him in his arms and lifted him out of bed. Perry, long used to being carried, rested his head on Sebastian’s shoulder and sighed. There would be no reasoning with his stubborn dragon. Not now, at least. When Sebastian got an idea in his head, it was exceedingly difficult to get it out, and Perry had neither the physical stamina nor the mental wherewithal to set about extracting it. Perhaps tomorrow, once he’d rested. Or later this evening, after a long nap. For now, he’d let Sebastian beat his chest and roar at whoever might listen. It was better this way.
“Where are we going, Sebastian?” Perry asked as Sebastian carried him away from the bed.
Sebastian grunted and carried Perry through the door leading from the main hoard chamber into the adjoining bathroom. Following the Topaz attack several years back, Sebastian had decided it prudent to have proper facilities installed in the event Perry or the children had to take shelter there again. The addition pleased Perry, not so much for its future usefulness, but for how convenient it was in the present. Previously he’d needed to walk all the way upstairs to the master bedroom to shower, and while it had been a simple nuisance while their nest was empty, now that they had whelps again, it was a logistical nightmare. Perry did not relish the days he emerged from the hoard damp with sweat and slick with other, far more unmentionable things only to be beset upon by eight darling children.
His only regret was that they hadn’t installed it sooner.
The hoard’s bathroom, like everything they owned, was opulent, and was spacious enough to comfortably fit every one of Sebastian’s brothers and their mates, although it was perhaps not as big as Perry would have liked. Still, it was quite beautiful, and Perry adored it from the dome of its cathedral ceiling to its glittering inlaid diamond and labradorite floor tiles.
The lights blinked on as they entered, dim at first, but gradually brighter the more time passed. The marvels of the modern age were all so impressive. Even now, Perry could hardly believe that magic like this was theirs to command.
From the central powder room, they traveled through the arched doorway to the right, through which the bath was waiting. It was irregular in shape, more closely resembling a natural pond than a tub, and sunken into the stone quartz flooring. To further the illusion, the room was stylized to look like a cave, its back wall rounded and irregular, and made of the same solid quartz as the flooring. Decorative boulders and other outcrops of rocks took things another step further than that, although for the most part, they were hidden beneath lush, leafy plants that gave the room a much-needed pop of color.
While, like everywhere else in the bathroom, this room had excellent ventilation, a delightful natural humidity seeped into the air from the stone that Perry found soothing.
Sebastian set Perry down near the edge of the tub and ordered him to stay, then dropped to his knees to run the water and activate the tub’s interior lights. Soon enough the room was filled with steam and sweet perfumes—Sebastian had added something to the water. Lavender, if Perry’s nose was to be believed.
Perry sighed with pleasure. After the atrium, this was his favorite room in the house. He loved green, growing things. He didn’t think he’d be happy in any place where he was deprived of them for a lengthy amount of time. He leaned against one of the boulders while he waited for Sebastian. It was smooth and moss-covered. It was also vibrating very softly. Perry laughed, but softly, so as to not wake his “boulder.” Pake, the sweetest—and likely oldest—giant tortoise on the planet moved very slowly and liked to sleep. When he wasn’t sleeping, he liked to eat. Now that Perry looked closely at the foliage, he saw that some of the leaves had been chewed on a bit.
It was a mystery how Pake kept getting into the bathroom. Like Perry, the tortoise loved the new bathroom and somehow kept finding a way in. No one was entirely sure how. Perry wasn’t particularly interested in solving it. He liked to think of Pake as being a silent and deadly ninja tortoise who would defend Perry’s life every bit as heroically as Sebastian would, should it ever come down to it. Giving Pake a kiss on his shell, Perry scooted closer to the tub and didn’t alert Sebastian to the tortoise’s presence. Their pet was soundly asleep and removing him from the vicinity for Sebastian’s peace of mind was far more trouble than it would be worth. Sometimes it was best to let sleeping boulders lie.
When the tub was filled, Sebastian turned off the water, stood, and gathered Perry in his arms. Then, with great care, he stepped into the tub and set Perry down, where he proceeded to bathe him. He started with Perry’s feet, massaging their pads and arches in turn before running a soapy washcloth with great reverence between each of his toes. He cleaned Perry’s ankles and calves with the same attention to detail, then sat and drew Perry onto his lap to wash between his thighs.
His touch was an old, familiar love song, and while Perry felt very poorly indeed, it comforted him to know that there was still goodness in the world. Sebastian truly was the sweetest dragon of all.
With a contented sigh, Perry rested his head on Sebastian’s chest and hummed his appreciation, prompting Sebastian to reward him with a kiss to the top of his head. The washcloth inched inward and very gradually, Sebastian’s touch became suggestive. It didn’t surprise Perry in the least when his thickened shaft pushed between Perry’s cheeks.
“I will make things right,” Sebastian whispered in Perry’s ear. “I will protect you. I vow it. I will find a way to make this time different. We shall not lose another child.”
Perry rolled his head back, exposing the long arch of his neck. It was, at times, easy to forget how large and powerful Sebastian really was, but here in his arms, seated on his lap, it was inescapable. Next to him Perry was a doll, dwarfed in height, size, and might. It was easy to trick oneself into believing a creature of such magnitude could right every wrong in the world, but such was not the case. Sebastian was a mighty warrior and a fine hero, but some evils were unvanquishable. Defeat did not mean that he had failed. It simply meant the battle had not been his to win.
No matter what happened, Perry vowed to remember it.
Sebastian was not the reason why his heart was broken. If anything, he was the reason why it hadn’t yet fallen apart entirely.
Still slick from their time in bed, Perry lifted his hips and guided Sebastian’s cock back where it belonged.
“You are mine, Perry,” Sebastian told him as Perry arched his back and rode. “Mine. And what I take, I defend. No matter how many times I fail, I will never give up. I will protect you until my dying breath.”
The words were as sweet as the truffles Sebastian fed him later that evening, after the children had been put to bed and their lair was quiet once more. And, like the truffles, Perry delighted in them in small bites, savoring them, afraid that soon he’d eat them all up, and there would be no more.